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Sunday, 25 August 2013

Most of the Dark Night posts are labelled Dark Night. Therefore, if you want to read them all together as a whole, you can. Just use the search bar.

Today, a priest gave a hint as to the needing of perfection by a small thought. He noted that if we have one virtue which we are not practising, such as patience, that means that the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which we have through baptism, is blocked. We cannot experience the fullness of the life of the virtues without purification.

Nice synchronicity, when someone says something out of the blue which one is experiencing...

Today's Gospel in the Novus Ordo reveals a harsh teaching from Our Lord. The parable of the narrow gate, or narrow door, reminds us not to become complacent.

Remember that Jesus was talking to His Own People here, not non-believers, not pagans.

So, what is He saying? To me, the narrow gate is one thing-obedience to orthodoxy, which is the same as being obedient to Christ Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

All else follows.......

Luke 13:22-30

Douay-Rheims

22 And he went through the cities and towns teaching, and making his journey to Jerusalem.

23 And a certain man said to him: Lord, are they few that are saved? But he said to them:

24 Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able.

25 But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And he answering, shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are.

26 Then you shall begin to say: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.

27 And he shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are: depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

28 There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.

29 And there shall come from the east and the west, and the north and the south; and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.

30 And behold, they are last that shall be first; and they are first that shall be last.

In the Novus Ordo Mass today, the second reading highlights the discipline and suffering needed for all of us.

After the TLM today, outside, many young people, the ones with whom I am closest in the community, mainly because some of them have made and celibate commitment, some are pursuing perfection, and some are on line were talking for a good 45 minutes in a group on suffering.

Amazing. These are the saints in training. Many of them have deep personal sufferings, such as illnesses, or barrenness although being young marrieds. Some have suffering in their families, many of whom are parents who have lost the Faith.

Incredible as it sounds, all of these young people, only one of them Irish, all expect organized persecution. The young ones from Poland have seen it all before through the stories of their families in Poland. The ones from Scotland pray and understand the signs of the times. They understand that the Church needs to be purified. Those from Brazil have seen the rot in the Church set in.

While some have been mistaken about the length of these hard times coming soon, they all acknowledge the reality of the purification of themselves and the Church.

It is too bad that the older people in the congregation do not get this. Of course, there are few, if any my age, mostly the people are much older or like these twenty and thirty somethings, much younger.

I have no idea where the rest are....

Hebrews 12:7-15

Douay-Rheims

7 Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct?

8 But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.

9 Moreover we have had fathers of our flesh, for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live?

10 And they indeed for a few days, according to their own pleasure, instructed us: but he, for our profit, that we might receive his sanctification.

11 Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice.

12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

13 And make straight steps with your feet: that no one, halting, may go out of the way; but rather be healed.

Labor Day, a secular holiday in the States, is the end of the summer season. This year, it is Monday, week.

Now, I mention this for two reasons, as a housekeeper and as a woman raised in the Midwest. And, I use to make this flag cake as the American Mom.

After Labor Day, a woman in the Midwest put away her summer sandals, her white shoes, white handbags, white summer dresses, and prepared for Autumn. This quaint custom is still followed in some places. Even though my wardrobe is minimalist, I shall not use my straw hat or my straw purse for Mass after this day.

It is the done thing in my family.

And, it is the day which officially marks the end of the vacation season.

Unlike Europeans, who seem to vacation at will and who have much longer Christmas and Easter holidays, Americans, who is my opinion, are excellent workers, still, just still, with a good work ethic, which means that one puts in a day's work for a day's pay, Americans, I repeat, have limited holidays. We work hard and we play hard.

Labor Day is one of the last family holidays until mid-term school breaks, which are so scattered in scheduling and so short, that families do not holiday in America until Thanksgiving Day weekend.

So, Labor Day is a big deal.

A formal goodbye to summer is a good thing and the present generation in Europe, who are bred and led into the entitlement attitude, and cannot understand a real commitment to work. One should not work for vacations. Perhaps the loss of an agricultural society in Europe has something to do with this. Perhaps the God-given rhythm of the seasons has been sacrificed to technology.

We are called to work by God for two reasons: one, as good stewards of the things of the earth given to us by God, and two, as punishment for Original Sin,

Obviously, when a culture does not recognize either Original Sin or the duties of stewardship. when a culture has fallen into the sin of socialism, which undermines the dignity of human work, this Labor Day will have no meaning. Catholics should understand what duty and good stewardship mean. For many of us, it is in the blood.

In the meantime, I put away sandals, white clothes, straw hats and bags, and prepare for the long winter. It is appropriate that humans see the ebb and flow of the seasons as a good thing, and that work and rest also have a place.

So much is being lost in Western Culture so quickly. I know my 85 year old mom will not wear white until her heavy white wools at Christmas. Her mother, my maternal grandmother, was a milliner, as well as an expert seamstress, and writer. She was also one the first women to study for a law degree at St. Louis University after WWI. I loved her independence and great mind. But, growing up in a time of appropriateness in dress, we were always conscious of dress and the symbolism of dress, which she passed down to us.

Comment First-Yeats was writing about the ineptness and naivete of his own people in this poem. He decries the end of what he calls "Romantic Ireland", a term which could mean the end of idealism, or patriotism, or the end of a sense of morality.I choose to post this not necessarily because I am a republican, but because the death of Ireland surely has happened now with the passing of the abortion law, and the coming ssm law. The Celtic Tiger was a symptom of the same greed mentioned in this poem. After one hundred years, there is no difference in the apathy, greed, selfishness and pie-in-the-sky lack of reality of the people here. Yeats, for all his involvement in the occult and his own romantic fantasies, would not recognize his green island.The real Catholics are now the exiles, those who are orthodox and love the Church. The rest are blind.September 1913What need you, being come to sense,But fumble in a greasy tillAnd add the halfpence to the penceAnd prayer to shivering prayer, untilYou have dried the marrow from the bone;For men were born to pray and save;Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,The names that stilled your childish play,They have gone about the world like wind,But little time had they to prayFor whom the hangman's rope was spun,And what, God help us, could they save?Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spreadThe grey wing upon every tide;For this that all that blood was shed,For this Edward Fitzgerald died,And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,All that delirium of the brave?Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,And call those exiles as they wereIn all their loneliness and pain,You'd cry `Some woman's yellow hairHas maddened every mother's son':They weighed so lightly what they gave.But let them be, they're dead and gone,They're with O'Leary in the grave.

Thoughts and Things of Interest from The Bulletin of The Church of Our Lady and St. Peter, Leatherhead, Surrey

Serious words on receiving Communion unworthily and an interesting study dayChrist has hidden enemies. All those who live unjust and irreligious lives are Christ’s enemies, even if they are signed with his name and are called Christians. I mean the ones to whom he is going to say, “I do not know you,” and they say to him “Lord, in your name we ate and drank. In your name, we performed many deeds of power. What did we eat and drink in your name?” You see that they did not value their food very highly, and yet it was with referenceto it that they said they belonged to Christ. Christ is the food that is eaten and drunk. Even Christ’s enemies eat and drink him. The faithful know the Lamb without spot on which they feed, if only they fed on it in such a way that they are not liable to punishment! The apostle says, “Whoever eats and drinks unworthily, is eating and drinking judgment upon himself.”St Cyril of Alexandria 375-444“A SURE COMPASS: -THE DOCUMENTS OF THE COUNCIL”
Maybe a reader can go and report on this.A Symposium in the Year of Faith5th September 2013St John’s Seminary, Wonersh,Guildford, Surrey, GU5 OQX9.00am Sr Dr Finbarr Coffey HCCThe Second Vatican Council andthe Consecrated Life10.20am Dr Pia MatthewsGaudium et Spes: an Offer of Service to Mankind11.40am Bishop Philip EganAd Gentes and the New Evangelisation12.50pm Midday Prayer1.00pm Lunch2.00pm Fr Tim FiniganTrent & Vatican II Compared (Not Contrasted): Two moments of reform and Renewal in the Church3.00pm Dr Anthony Towey on DignitatisHumanae4.00pm Tea and Depart£10 to cover refreshments and lunch.Community Mass will be celebrated at 7.30am—visitors welcomeTo book a place contact symposium@wonersh.orgProgrammes updates will be posted on www.wonersh.org

This 1617 map shows the encircled monastic areas south of the river, at the base of the map, discussed here.

The present huge Dunne's store h.q. on Upper St. Stephen's Street was built over a 9th Century Viking graveyard. Half of all the Viking Graves of warriors with weapons in Britain have been found in Dublin. Too bad the city did not demand some preservation on the site for the public when this was discovered. Viking warriors were discovered, and a settlement was established in the area of the river, of course, in 841 A.D. Not much has been found from this time.

The Catholic missionaries came, establishing a monastic settlement, dating back to the 12th century. The area came to be called Dubh Linn, the Black Pool. Many churches were built, three in the area of the tour, indicating different monastic groupings. The Carmelites and Benedictines would have been some of the earliest orders. The first persecution happened under Henry VIII, of course, in 1539, when the Dissolution of the Monasteries Act was applied to Ireland as well.

In the take-over by the Puritans, the ruins of medieval houses were completely suppressed, finally, and the land given to the Aungier family, whose name graces the first modern street in Dublin, built across the monastic enclosure, and made wider than any other street. The width was ordered so that the new tenants and new builder, the family of Sir Francis Aungier, could travel in style with coaches to the main court. And, what was being built up on either side were large detached mansions and town houses, of massive sizes. This period saw the rise in power of the Flemish merchants as well as the new aristocracy.

One can trace, however, as my tour guide did, the old medieval lanes tucked in behind the 17th century street. Even today, a locksmith's shop is in the same building as an old forge and farrier's.

The gable fronted houses began to appear at the same time as the Georgian town houses, about 1720, The early mansions gradually were taken over by multiple families.

The Carmelites returned to the area in 1825, at what is now, still, Whitefriars Street Church, where the exhibition of the relics of St. Therese and her parents, as well as part of the linen of St. John Vianney were seen until late yesterday.

One of the greatest treasures at Whitefriars is the statue of Our Lady of Dublin, a medieval statue of exquisite beauty and tenderness, found in a pawn shop in 1835. Some records indicate it had been found in the river, after the monasteries were destroyed. The church was built in 1832, and one of my favourite shrines, and there are many, honours Blessed Titus Brandsma, our blog guild patron.

Sadly, too many of the houses were destroyed in the 20th century, after the war, in order to build hideously ugly public housing.

Ms Matthews noted that four 17th century town houses on the street have already been protected as national monuments. However, she said the council had identified several others that were not protected structures.

Conservation architects in the council now plan to recommend that a significant number of buildings in the area be added to the Record of Protected Structures.

“These are 17th Century houses,” she added. “It is a unique street and today we have about four of them protected as monuments. The real concern is that a number of them are unprotected and unidentified within the streetscape.”

According to Matthews one of the buildings on the street was built in 1670 and was unprotected. She noted that a planning application had been submitted to the council regarding a building beside the 17th century structure.

“We feel that Aungier Street should be defined,” she added. “We surveyed the local community and they felt that the area had a deficit in terms of cultural events or sites within the area.”

The Aungier Street area was originally home to several early monastic settlements, but in the 17th century Francis Aungier, 1st Baron Aungier of Longford, built the street.

Many of the early houses were built by Aungier, who resided in White Friars monastery, to house the elite of the city.

In the 17th century the street was also very closely linked to Dublin Castle through its association with James Butler, the Duke of Ormond, who lived in the area.

By the way, if any American Irish want to help the project, there are some of the early houses up for sale which may be demolished if no one comes forward. You can leave your email in a comment and I shall vet the note before sending it on to Nicola.

Leon Bloy

Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma

The Church Must Not Be Defensive

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Too many Church leaders do not think, or do not think as Catholics

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GUILD PRAYER

God our Father, source of life and freedom, through Your Holy Spirit you gave the Carmelite, Titus Brandsma the courage to affirm human dignity even in the midst of suffering and degrading persecution.

Grant us that same spirit so that, in refusing all compromise with error we may always and everywhere give coherent witness to Your abiding presence among us.